PAT CAPUTO: Detroit Pistons, Maurice Cheeks and the community college for NBA coaching

File- This Oct. 21, 2008 file photo shows Philadelphia 76ers coach Maurice Cheeks calling instructions to his players in the fourth quarter of a preseason NBA basketball game against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Philadelphia. A person familiar with the situation tells The Associated Press that the Detroit Pistons have hired Cheeks as their new coach. The person spoke Monday, June 10, 2013 on the condition of anonymity because the move has not yet been announced by the team. (AP Photo/Tom Mihalek, File)

The response to Maurice Cheeks being named the Pistons' head coach is similar to tepid tap water.

It has not been trending on Twitter. It has not been the subject of many Facebook posts. The calls aren't rolling into sports talk radio.

Doesn't seem like anybody is mad about it. Doesn't appear like anyone is glad about it, either. Some are sad, remembering the Pistons' salad days.

Mostly, they wonder who the Tigers' closer will eventually be, or if Matthew Stafford is really a Super Bowl championship-caliber quarterback, or how the Red Wings will tweak their roster this summer.

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The Pistons will hold their semi-annual news conference Thursday introducing Cheeks as the new coach.

These are often described as "feel good" news conferences signifying a fresh start, but this is more a confirmation of a bad habit the Pistons just can't break.

Mo Cheeks, 56 years old, has a resume most NBA lifers clamor for as a player and a coach and a person and, in that sense, he deserves better.

He didn't bring in Flip Saunders or Michael Curry or John Kuester or Lawrence Frank to get their associate degree at what has become pro basketball's community college for coaches. You know, two years and out.

Yet, it's difficult to not see him as the latest sacrificial lamb.

The Cheeks' hire is puzzling, too, because George Karl was the NBA Coach of the Year with Denver and fired.

And not hired by the Pistons.

Lionel Hollins took the Memphis Grizzlies to their first-ever Western Conference finals and was fired.

And not hired by the Pistons.

Vinny Del Negro led the Los Angeles Clippers to the best record in franchise history. He was fired.

And not hired by the Pistons.

So what was the hurry for the Pistons to select Cheeks without looking into the other above-mentioned potential options more closely?

It's not like some years when there doesn't seem to be any quality coaches available, and the classic NBA retread with little of a successful pedigree as a head coach is the best option.

There are many excellent coaches the Pistons had to aim for, and fairly or unfairly, the perception is they settled for Cheeks.

Cheeks is exceptionally dignified. He was raised in the projects of Chicago, rose through an obscure college program at West Texas State and had a long NBA career as a championship-caliber point guard. As coach, he has been better as an assistant than a head coach. He has never won a playoff series as a head coach in stops at Portland and Philadelphia totaling seven-plus years.

Cheeks warmed hearts when he was the coach at Portland and helped a young girl, who got the deer-in-the-headlights look and stage freight while singing the national anthem, get through her rendition. The Pistons will sell him as the ideal coach to bring along their promising, yet floundering, young core - Greg Monroe, Andre Drummond and, particularly, guard Brandon Knight.

The Pistons do have the above-mentioned nucleus, plenty of cap space to work with this summer and the eighth overall pick in the upcoming NBA Draft. Yet, preaching patience when they change coaches the way Darko Milicic changed his hair color is an impossible sell.

Were the Pistons any better last season than they were the season before? Or the season before that?

So the team's story line isn't a sequel to "Mutiny on the Bounty" like the last season Richard Hamilton played here. What is that? Some kind of convoluted moral victory?

It'd be inaccurate to say Cheeks is walking into a "hornet's nest." The hive has been empty for a long time. Controversy left The Palace long ago. It has been replaced by something much more hideous for those who still care deeply about the franchise of the "Bad Boys" and the "Going to Work" Pistons. It's apathy.

While there are many good things to consider about Maurice Cheeks, those, unfortunately, are being ignored.

Perception is reality for the Pistons. Cheeks can only change it by winning games.

As the cavalcade of coaches preceding him down Championship Drive can fully confirm, it will be much easier said than done.